by Leigh Witchel
We all live inside history, but history is also personal. Alexei Ratmansky’s staging of “Giselle” for the United Ukrainian Ballet isn’t strictly a reconstruction, but Ratmansky’s very individual yet historically informed take.
The story of the company is compelling in itself, but would need a second article (read more here). Beyond a moving moment with Ukrainian flags and the national anthem at the curtain call, this version isn’t specifically Ukrainian: it’s “Giselle” set where it usually is, somewhere in central Europe. What was Ukrainian was the company’s purpose: to raise visibility for the country and allow its dancers to dance, as war and enforced hiatus could so easily destroy that ability.
In some ways beggars can’t be choosers – the designs for the production were by Hayden Griffin and Peter Farmer courtesy of Birmingham Royal Ballet, facilitated by Doug Nicholson. Side note: that’s not the first production mitzvah Nicholson has done. If you love Sarasota Ballet’s wonderful revivals, thank him as well.
Through happenstance, there are two historically informed Giselle productions happening at almost the same time. The other is across the country in Seattle, PNB’s version from 2011, staged by Artistic Director Peter Boal and spearheaded by the research of Doug Fullington and Marian Smith. Both productions have their own take, but you could recognize and corroborate the details inserted from similar sources.
Ratmansky’s tale began as it usually does: with peasants heading to the fields. They walked under a amethyst and sodalite sunrise up a ramp concealed by an alley of low trees. The big scenic details were familiar; Giselle’s house, where she lived with her mother, was on stage right. On the other side, a small shed for Albrecht, here Count Albert.
The production saw Hilarion as the 19th century saw him, as the antagonist, not a misunderstood hero. Ratmansky took Hilarion’s mime from the same sources as PNB’s production: Marat Ragimov faced us and said, “They will not marry, I swear it!” Many details between this production and Seattle’s were similar, albeit with slightly different shadings. Ratmansky restored the mime for harvesting (three horizontal cuts of a scythe) but used it in a slightly different place.
If Hilarion was the antagonist, Ratmansky refused to keep that to a single dimension. When Giselle, Elizeveta Gogidze, told Hilarion she didn’t love him, Ragimov raised his arm as if to strike her, then was horrified at his action and begged her forgiveness. Bad man or good, what Ratmansky made clear is that Hilarion was the wrong man – never meant to be a serious candidate for her affection.
Albert, played by Oleksii Knyazkov, is the man we know, but like Hilarion, more clear because of the completeness of detail. He emerged first from the shed with his manservant, Wilfred, (Viktor Lytvynenko). Wilfred’s character was very filled out, even by the addition of a single sentence of mime. He pointed with both hands to the distance “over there” and then his ring finger, “you are engaged.” Albert had been clearly warned, as had we. Of course Albert ignored this warning from a servant, and Wilfred bowed elaborately and withdrew, managing to passive-aggressively make his disapproval clear.
Ratmansky also turned the clock back on Giselle. Gogidze wasn’t sickly, or a shrinking violet. She was a happy, healthy girl who stamped her foot in frustration when she thought she heard Albert but couldn’t find him.
She wasn’t an easy mark for a predator; she flirted as happily as Albert. Their attraction was as much a game for her and she enjoyed it. Later in their scene, she said, directly and skeptically “You don’t love me.” And rather than the “I swear!” mime Albert now does, that led into the loves-me-loves-me-not game. He did try to gaslight her in a different way than usual. Albert didn’t even remove a petal, just maintained the daisy petals said “loves me.” As often happens with Ratmansky’s sense of humor, he made the scene a little goofy, but you could still see why she might be suspicious.
As in the historical sources, Albert did not reach for his sword at the end of his argument with Hilarion. But Ratmansky had Hilarion point to Albert in warning on the last note rather than the other way round. In the next scene, some foreshadowing for Giselle had been deleted; she didn’t have a fainting spell in the usual spot. When Giselle’s mother, here called Berthe and played by Olena Mykhailova, came out, she was most concerned that Giselle wasn’t doing her work, and told a slightly different story of the wilis. The style of mime for the production was very sharp and demonstrative; so clear that it read almost as comic. Giselle’s reaction to her mother’s warning wasn’t fear or foreshadowing, but to brush it off.
Ratmansky staged the moments before the arrival of the hunting party slightly differently, but it set Albert up for what would happen later. He was onstage when the horn announcing the group sounded and recognized it. But when the women headed to investigate, he insisted it was time to harvest and sent them in the opposite direction to the fields. Before the hunting party even arrived, Hilarion had figured out that Albert was an impostor, and that was what made him go to the shed. He wasn’t investigating, he was looking for proof.
Everything in the scene with Bathilde and her father was, again, a tiny bit different. The Duke also had the best fur hat ever. Fashions aside, the biggest difference for modern audiences was that Bathilde was sympathetic, and Ratmansky did more to flesh that out.
After Giselle complimented her dress, Bathilde returned the compliment, and gave Giselle her necklace even before knowing Giselle was engaged. It was bestowed because Bathilde though it would look good on Giselle with her pretty dress. Rather than quizzing her, Bathilde also let Giselle lead the conversation about marriage. Giselle told Bathilde first that she was in love and would marry. Bathilde answered that she was in the same happy situation, and for her, the fact that they were both in love and engaged made them BFFs.
Giselle’s variation was moved to the harvest scene, before the peasant pas. Carlotta Grisi’s original variation, which is not done anymore, wasn’t restored. Gogidze danced a version of the current variation, a solo made for Elena Cornalba from a different ballet and transferred to “Giselle.” The original was said to have sparkling allegro footwork.
Ratmansky kept the solo to the same framework as what’s familiar, but added a few changes in transitions. The hops on point were quick, and it ended with a diagonal instead of a manège.
The peasant pas de deux is also an interpolation, but a very early one. Ratmansky played a bit here, making the man’s first variation into a tongue-twister, with single tours changing direction. But the overall design and intent wasn’t radically altered. Daria Manoilo and Vlad Bondar were diminuitive, capable and secure. Bondar supported Manoilo with only one hand, then let her go and she stayed on balance.
Albert came back onstage right after the dancing, trying to reach Giselle, but Berthe watchfully headed him off, and asked him to dance instead. Usually his solo is based on his solo in Act 2, but this was again, slightly different. Ratmansky had him make a calling gesture with his arm and head as if asking Giselle to come with him. Even though Ratmansky deleted the congruence between the two solos, he emphasized the idea of Albert the seducer, trying to lure Giselle. Dancing steps might have been changed because Ratmansky is a choreographer at heart. It felt very like him to put gargouillades into the friend’s dance. But the changes to the narrative details were thoughtful.
Ratmansky staged the confrontation scene with tremendous impact, fine-tuned to pressure-cook both Giselle and Albert, so the extreme outcome seemed more plausible. When Hilarion entered he mimed to Albert, “You get out of here, go away!” then to Giselle, “He is a nobleman!” Giselle laughed at Hilarion. Some of the scene was familiar: Hilarion taunted Albert into grabbing for his sword. Wilfred grabbed Albert and restrained him. Ratmansky and Knyazkov saw this – very early in the scene – as the point when Albert started to crack.
The Duke was also much more active, which isn’t usual but made sense. He was the person of rank, and immediately started taking command, stopping someone from talking to make an inquiry. He confronted Albert and demanded an explanation from him, but kept stopping the explanation.
Bathilde also didn’t merely observe, but asked Albert what was wrong. The retooling of focus with all inquiries coming at Albert put an uncomfortable spotlight on him. The earlier warnings he ignored were coming back to haunt him.
Even though Ratmansky hadn’t given Giselle oodles of foreshadowing for her mad scene or death, both still worked because of the pressure of the pacing. She wasn’t wandering around dazed at first; she went to her mother and reassured her that everything was fine, though it obviously wasn’t. But after that, much of her mad scene seemed to happen in a kind of trance.
During this, Knyazkov was reeling, and he is the one who grabbed the sword from Gogidze. As at PNB, Bathilde went to Giselle and tried to comfort her. But the girl was seeing wilis everywhere. The injection of the supernatural world made earlier symptoms of heart weakness or mental instability less imperative.
This is a point where the PNB sourcing and this version diverge. At PNB in 2011:
her loss of reason is also seen more as a passing attack than a complete crackup. At the end of the scene, Giselle recovers and recognizes both her mother and Albrecht, but also that she is about to die, and she collapses lifeless.
This was very hard to make work, and Ratmansky opted for something quicker and more devastating to Albert. She mimed “You said you would marry me,” saw wilis again and collapsed, dead.
The aftermath was pandemonium, but important. As usual, Albert tried to attack Hilarion with the sword, which failed. But then he turned his sword on himself. Wilfred stopped him, but the realization of what he had done had slammed home. The act ended with Albert cradling Giselle’s body, a gesture he was on the hard way to earning.
Act 2 took place at the graveside with a group of men, not gamblers or gravediggers, but fellow gamekeepers friendly with Hilarion. Giselle’s grave was where it often is, downstage right. Hilarion less berated them for drinking than gave them a warning. “Don’t stay here, this is where the wilis are, and they will kill you.” But he was drawn to Giselle’s grave and explained, “This was someone that I loved and lost” The men took off their hats as the clock struck.
As the hunters left, the wilis appeared to chase them. Hilarion left in the other direction but then ran across the stage, as if pursued.
One of the things that slowly got pared out of “Giselle,” and most 19th century ballets, for practical reasons such as safety and cost, were stage mechanics. A few effects were restored here. Kateryna Derechyna drifted in on Myrtha’s first entry and a hidden cord snatched away her veil, something most modern productions do later with Giselle or the full corps, if at all. In the middle of her variation, she ran off inexplicably, and then we saw her flying across the back. This entailed an awkward moment where the stage was empty, and that may have been another reason for the deletion of the stage mechanics.
Tall and leggy, Derechyna came forward and spied Giselle’s grave. Her first few steps seemed to be danced to it, as if acknowledging that her ranks would grow by one that night. A few steps in her solo were different in scale or direction. Her bourrées that we know as side to side with a bell-like jump in between were smaller and traveled back without the balloné. Her jetés en tournant were small and fast rather than aiming for air time. This was also the case in Seattle.
Ratmansky had the wilis come in with a different walk than the elegant back tendu usually done now. They almost shuffled in, coming into parallel reminiscent of a bunny hop. There was also no trick with their veils, they left the stage to remove them and returned, this time walking on relevé.
Veronika Hordina and Manoilo were Myrtha’s henchwomen, Moyna and Zulme. Hordina had a long, lithe arabesque. Manoilo started her variation with cabrioles that were an amplification of Moyna’s arabesques, then into the more familiar renversés. When both returned, their legs flew to the side in extensions, and in the famous traveling arabesques, all the women really traveled.
Over time, Myrtha has become a role for a great jumper, but everything here was smaller scale; her final manège was composed of low saut de basques.
Giselle also had her veil whisked offstage, but with better timing. Inconsistent results could have been one more reason the stage mechanics were whittled away. Gogidze did familiar wild spins in attitude representing her emotional confusion, but her variation did not end with her leaping offstage. Instead, she knelt at the center of a cross the wilis formed. It’s one of a few additions that didn’t make perfect sense. Shortly, the wilis would shrink away from Giselle’s grave and its cross. Why would they make one here?
At its most self-indulgent Albert’s Act 2 entry can be only about working the cape, effects without any genuine feeling. Knyazkov was indeed wearing a black cloak, and carrying roses the color of blood, but he didn’t bother with that nonsense. He entered, stricken, leaning on Wilfred, who led and supported him.
He handed Wilfred the flowers briefly and went to the grave, then retrieved the blossoms and asked Wilfred to leave. It was clear that he wanted time alone with Giselle’s spirit. Ratmansky used the moment for a moving stage picture: the two men slowly walking a diagonal in opposite directions.
But Wilfred raced back in, trying to get his master and fleeing something only he could see. You could practically hear them screaming in the mime as the two argued:
“YOU HAVE TO LEAVE. YOU’RE GOING TO BE KILLED.”
“GO AWAY.”
Wilfred didn’t need any further invitation to flee.
Once the flying rig had gone for Myrtha stage right to stage left, it remained there for Giselle, like a cable car waiting for return passengers, and Gogidze took flight across the stage in the opposite direction.
The action returned to the familiar, but throughout Ratmansky was looking for motivation for the steps. As Albert and Giselle did assemblés from side to side, he reached for her as they crossed, as if trying to touch her and make sure she was real. He followed her in gorgeous split jetés, but Ratmansky blocked it so that Albert hadn’t left before Hilarion was led in by the wilis. The lighting turned a ghostly blue.
The staging didn’t give Hilarion big tricks, but a chilling touch as he watched his legs, then his arms, fall out of his control and start to copy the movements of the wilis. They pushed him up a rock outcropping at the back and off to drown in the offstage lake.
The famous exit of the wilis was no longer an exit. Instead, they jumped downstage, and hooked round, waiting as Albert was brought in by Myrtha and her assistants. Giselle rushed in to intercede from the back, led Albert to her grave, and at her cue he touched it. Its magic forced Myrtha to drop her branch.
Ratmansky restored a short dance even PNB left out: A fugue for the wilis is in the original score, and was described in contemporary accounts, that the wilis attacked and recoiled in waves. That’s exactly what Ratmansky made; Myrtha first coming towards the lovers, then backing away shielding herself. The wilis did the same a line at a time. The fugue was short and interesting, but it stopped the action like slamming on the brakes to take a turn. You could again see why it was cut.
At the beginning of the grand pas de deux, Albert started to leave the grave. Gogidze integrated a port de bras in her first variation to also tell him to stay where he was. It was clever, but Giselle’s admonition has never fully made sense as a few moments later he breaks away and joins her anyway.
When carrying Giselle at the end of their duet, good partners swing Giselle to and fro as if in flight. That was evidently a later addition; it was a plain arabesque here. At the end of the adagio, she covered her face as if weeping; he looked to her as if to beg forgiveness.
Albert ended his variation at Giselle’s grave. She came to him and mimed, “Remember you love me” and asked him to keep dancing before doing her short solo where she made the same calling gesture Ratmansky gave to Albert in Act 1. Where once Albert’s Act 1 solo was echoed by his Act 2 solo, it’s now this second time someone is being lured away from safety.
Time was running out; under Myrtha’s command Albert did tour jetés with beats, and as he lifted Giselle in tiny hops, instead of changing directions with a fouetté, he lifted her in an Italian changement. There was no trick, jump or spin as he gave out, he simply fell down exhausted.
Giselle gathered him up and led him to a stump downstage left to sit, but Myrtha grabbed him and made him dance. Again, his exhaustion wasn’t embellished. He just fell exhausted, and the clock struck four.
Ratmansky and PNB evidently used the same source to restore the original ending. Giselle hugged and cradled Albert, and he led her to a patch of grass on the other side from her grave, but she kept sinking into it. She made one final mime, “Go and marry,” and blew him a kiss before she sunk away. Albert had refused her command initially, but Wilfred brought Bathilde in on the final notes. Albert staggered towards her into Wilfred’s arms as she reached for him.
An excellent, cogent staging made the Ukrainians look their best. Like Ratmansky’s staging of “The Sleeping Beauty” for American Ballet Theatre, the details are invaluable for those of us who care about dance history, and I apologize for spending so much time on them for our small crowd of Inside Baseball fans.
But the details weren’t the key to this version’s success. What really made this staging work is that it had such a clear point of view on the story. Giselle, Albert, Hilarion, Bathilde, even the Duke, with every character, Ratmansky concentrated on making them live and make sense. As E.M. Forster might have said, they are not flat, they were gloriously round.
copyright © 2023 by Leigh Witchel
“Giselle” – United Ukrainian Ballet
Opera House, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington DC
February 2, 2023
Cover: Elizaveta Gogidze and Oleksii Knyazkov in “Giselle.” Photo credit © Altin Kaftira.
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